Media outlets based in the capital of Iraq’s Kurdistan Regional
Government reported on the Wednesday fighting, with ARA News
saying that Kurdish combatants
staged an assault against IRGC troops in the villages of Hamran,
Myouni and Sartaja outside the border town of Sardasht.

“This led the Iranian forces to [deploy] additional military
reinforcements to the region in a bid to face the unexpected
fierce offensive,” the news site added.

Rudaw News, in turn, cited witnesses in the three villages
as saying that clashes were ongoing as helicopters circled
overhead.

“At least 15 ambulances were seen rushing into areas where
security forces were deployed,” the report also said.

Iranian media has remained mostly mum in its coverage of the
fighting, however the state-controlled Islamic Republic of Iran
Broadcasting (IRIB) reported Thursday that a
funeral was held for two IRGC members killed in “clashes” in
Sardasht.

However, the report did not go into further details on the
violence.

As of yet, none of the anti-Tehran Kurdish factions based in the
area have claimed credit for the military operation, however
Saudi Arabia’s Al-Arabiya television quoted local activists as
saying that fighters in from the Democratic Party of Iranian
Kurdistan (PDKI) took part in the deadly clashes.

Members
of the revolutionary guard attend the anniversary ceremony of
Iran's Islamic Revolution at the Khomeini shrine in the Behesht
Zahra cemetery, south of Tehran, February 1,
2012.Reuters

The PDKI, for its part, touted the fighting on its official
Twitter account, claiming on Wednesday that more than
10 IRGC soldiers had died in Sardasht.

It also said that two Iranian helicopters had
deployed to the region in a bid to aid “a large group of
Revolutionary Guards that [were] suffering heavy losses,”
adding that Iranian troops
were shelling positions in the Myouni mountains.

The PDKI—a left-wing Kurdish nationalist group formed in
1945—announced on February 26 that it was
restarting its “armed resistance against the Islamic Republic of
Iran” and claimed an attack against a Basij base in the village
of Majid Khan.

The group waged a deadly insurgency against Iranian authorities
from 1989 to 1996, after which it maintained a peaceful policy
until it purportedly engaged Iranian troops in the fall of 2015.

Another Kurdish opposition faction in Iran, the Kurdistan Freedom
Party, announced Friday that it too was resuming its armed
operations in Iran.

“Iran is at the doorstep of a wide-scale armed uprising … that
will include all off its cities,” the commander of the PAK’s
armed wing, Hussein Yazdanpana, toldAsharq Alawsat.